Friday, 31 August 2012

Merdeka Day used to bring Malaysians together for one big do, but politics has changed all that

National colours, in droplets: The Malaysian flag, or Jalur Gemilang, is reflected in thousands of raindrops on a windscreen of a car during a rainy day in Kuching. It’s Aug 31 — Malaysians from all across the nation are flying the Jalur Gemilang with pride as they celebrate the 55th Merdeka Day. This photo is taken close up with a 90mm macro lense. —ZULAZHAR SHEBLEE/The Star

TODAY, Aug 31, is Merdeka Day. It’s usually an occasion celebrated with parades and speeches remembering heroes in the struggle for indedependence, marked by the singing of patriotic songs and much flag-waving.

The celebrations also generally include groups of participants in colourful traditional costumes to remind us of our rich cultural heritage and diversity.

It should be a time of reflection on what nationhood means for Malaysia and how we want our country to move forward, a time of celebrating together as Malaysians with no regard to race, religion or political affiliation.

Unfortunately, we live in such a politically-charged atmosphere, with the impending 13th general election looming over us, that even National Day has turned into an occasion for petty squabbling and the inevitable politicking.

The official theme of Janji Ditepati (Promises Fulfilled) has been met with derision by the Opposition, who claim it is an empty slogan as many Government promises have not been fulfilled.

For their part, Pakatan Rakyat leaders have said they will skip the official celebrations for their own state-level one, complete with their own theme of Senegara, Sebangsa, Sejiwa(One Country, One Nation, One Soul).

So, instead of uniting the people as befits Merdeka Day, the celebration has been split along partisan lines.

Public reaction seems to range from indifference to disdain. We’re grown weary from waiting for the polls to be called and it’s hardly surprising if people are skeptical of the endless campaigning.

Meanwhile, there’s the important matter of what Merdeka Day means for Sarawak and Sabah. On this day in 1957, it was the Federation of Malaya which gained independence from the British. Sarawak became independent on July 22 1963 and Sabah on Aug 31 1963, shortly before Malaysia came into being on Sept 16 1963.

Some quarters have raised the point that today’s celebration has no relevance to Sarawak and Sabah, and that Malaysia Day on Sept 16 should be the rightful National Day.

Coupled with this is the tricky question of whether Malaysia is 55 or 49 years old, depen-ding on whether the birth of the nation is deemed to be in 1957 or 1963.

We’re in the peculiar position whereby Malaya became independent on Aug 31 1957, but the country of Malaysia was formed on Sept 16 1963 through the merger of Malaya, Singapore (which left in 1965), Sarawak and Sabah.

For Sarawakians and Sabahans, Sept 16 is the more meaningful date because it commemorates the birth of Malaysia, a nation of which we are a part. Peninsular Malaysians need to understand this and realise why Sept 16 is important to us here.

On our part, we should accept that Aug 31 is likewise an important date for the peninsula. However, since Sept 16 is Malaysia Day, it should be given equal, if not greater prominence, than Aug 31 as a truly national celebration of our coming together as a country.

Nevertheless, as we celebrate National Day today, let us be reminded of the Proclamation of Independence read out by Tunku Abdul Rahman in 1957. It ends with the hope that the newly-independent nation “with God’s blessing shall be forever a sovereign democratic and independent state founded upon the principles of liberty and justice and ever seeking the welfare and happiness of its people and the maintenance of a just peace among all nations.”

In line with this, the Christian Federation of Malaysia’s Merdeka Day message is a timely call for Malaysians to forge ahead and invest in building a progressive and better country for all.

“In this celebratory occasion let us dream a new dream for all Malaysians. We pray to Almighty God that He will grant us a new vision of Malaysia for ourselves and all our children. We are a nation truly blessed with so much potential in our multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious communities.

“Let us mutually share all our resources, our wealth and opportunities and be a model nation to the nations around us. We can begin to do this by loving God and our neighbours as ourselves. Let us be responsible citizens of our beloved Malaysia. Let us care for those in need like the orphans and widows. May we meet the needs of the marginalised and others left by the wayside. In concert, let us jointly prosper our neighbours first.

“As Malaysians we step forward together in unity and harmony for all Malaysians and not pay heed to the strident voices of some with their narrow interests,” it said.

It also called for justice and righteousness to be upheld and for friendship, unity and harmony to be strengthened in the country.

May this be our prayer and hope for Malaysia as we celebrate this Merdeka Day.

Apple came close to destroying its business in the late 1980s by pursuing a suit against Microsoft claiming that Windows infringed the look and feel of the Mac desktop metaphor. Apple focused its hopes and business future on this lawsuit, while its market share dwindled. Rather than competing, it litigated. And lost.

The first justifiable conclusion might be that big companies get their way. The second might reasonably be that Apple doesn't change much: its business model remains aggressive self-righteousness. The third is what everybody knows: patent rules and philosophy are all screwed up.

As for the first point, Apple is not just a big company, but the biggest. And it is not just the biggest American company, but the most American company. It has entered a rarefied brand status in which it is now almost synonymous with American virtue: American as Apple. Its good design sense has become a major point of American pride, if not nationalism.

The brand is a national asset. Apple is AT&T in its pre-break-up from; it's GM, in its what's-good-for-General-Motors-is-good-for-the-country stage; it's United Fruit when it made US foreign policy; it's Microsoft when desktop computing was transforming the world.

Commercial omnipotence

This is about as close to commercial omnipotence as it gets. Its unassailability, its right to be preternaturally aggressive, is built into its share price. We believe in Apple. So let us briefly consider the chance for a Korean company defending itself against (or, perish the thought, challenging) the greatest American company of the age in the eyes of an American jury.

And then, there's the self-righteousness. Apple is one of the most aggressive intellectual property litigators of all time. Its major moves have not been about protecting precise technical innovations, but about claiming the much softer zone of look and feel.

It sues for brand rather than engineering. It has pioneered a new modern sensibility: taste is what's most valuable; identity is king. It's sued about the lower case "i"; it's sued about the word "pod"; it's sued New York City over the "big Apple"; it's sued over using the words "app store".

This fierce defensiveness might be rightly understood in a psychological sense: Apple itself is based on stolen iconography. There was first the Beatle's Apple and there was Xerox PARC's desktop design.

Apple's self-righteousness masks its guilt. (It may be sheepish, too, about being more of a marketing organization than a technology company.) What's more, it knows better than anybody that if you relax your vigilance, somebody can easily walk off with what you've done – and improve it.

And then, in the algebra of Samsung's loss and Apple's victory, there's patent hell. Or absurdity.

System of litigation

Patents are, arguably, no longer a system of protection; they are a system of litigation. Great numbers of patents are now filed, in an over-burdened system, to protect not innovations but the right to litigate over innovations. Indeed, any patent of value will ultimately be litigated.

What's more, as the system has become ever more over-taxed, as technology itself has become more complex, the ill-equipped and under-trained bureaucracy has increasingly taken to giving patents to wide-ranging abstractions.

Design concepts, behavior adjustments, and new approaches to problem solving are all patentable innovations. The system itself assumes that litigation is the check on the system. Which means, fundamentally, that the litigant with the most resources and greatest status wins.

But let us not argue the case that all this quite obviously impedes innovation and is part of a new unreal property land grab – not about technology at all, but about intellectual property: an effort to privatize much of what was once understood to be shared and public (indeed, not ownable, like the shape of the iPhone). But rather, for a moment, let's look at this as a form of hubris that has inevitable consequences.

The Apple that has won against Samsung is the same Apple that lost against Microsoft. In other words, it is the kind of company that, through sheer willfulness, discipline, and perfectionism, can achieve brand hegemony of a singular type. But it is, too, the kind of company – the exact sort of company – that becomes, perhaps inevitably becomes, the bete noire of consumerists, regulators and, of course, most of all, its competitors.

This is the story between the lines of its great victory and its further share price surge. On the one hand, there is this seemingly golden company. On the other hand, there is anybody with any sense of history knowing this is going to end badly.American capitalism

Companies that acquire the nation's imprimatur often, if not invariably, over-reach. It is a characteristic of American capitalism: the price of getting really big and overbearing is that you incur an inverse reaction. In the early 1990s, an ambitious department of justice (a Republican administration DOJ at that) commenced its assault on Microsoft.

For better or worse, by the time the feds were finished, the company, with its rotten operating system, besieged and beleaguered, had become just one of many not-very-adept players in the space – an unimaginable outcome if you remember the once God-like power and scorched-earth wrath of Microsoft.

Apple, and its rotten phone, have a ways to go. But karma should not be underestimated as a factor in this game.

"Free trade" is a sacred mantra in Washington. If anything is labeled as being "free trade", then everyone in the Washington establishment is required to bow down and support it. Otherwise, they are excommunicated from the list of respectable people and exiled to the land of protectionist Neanderthals.

This is essential background to understanding what is going on with the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a pact that the United States is negotiating with Australia, Canada, Japan and eight other countries in the Pacific region. The agreement is packaged as a "free trade" agreement. This label will force all of the respectable types in Washington to support it.

In reality, the deal has almost nothing to do with trade: actual trade barriers between these countries are already very low. The TPP is an effort to use the holy grail of free trade to impose conditions and override domestic laws in a way that would be almost impossible if the proposed measures had to go through the normal legislative process. The expectation is that by lining up powerful corporate interests, the governments will be able to ram this new "free trade" pact through legislatures on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

As with all these multilateral agreements, the intention is to spread its reach through time. That means that anything the original parties to the TPP accept is likely to be imposed later on other countries in the region, and quite likely, on the rest of the world.

Government secretsAt this point, it's not really possible to discuss the merits of the TPP since the governments are keeping the proposed text a secret from the public. Only the negotiators themselves and a select group of corporate partners have access to the actual document. The top executives at General Electric, Goldman Sachs, and Pfizer probably all have drafts of the relevant sections of the TPP. However, the members of the relevant congressional committees have not yet been told what is being negotiated.

A few items that have been leaked give us some insight as to the direction of this pact. One major focus is will be stronger protection for intellectual property. In the case of recorded music and movies, we might see provisions similar to those that were in the Stop Online Privacy Act (Sopa). This would make internet intermediaries like Google, Facebook and, indeed, anyone with a website into a copyright cop.

Since these measures were hugely unpopular, Sopa could probably never pass as a standalone piece of legislation. But tied into a larger pact and blessed with "free trade" holy water, the entertainment industry may be able to get what it wants.

The pharmaceutical industry is also likely to be a big gainer from this pact. It has decided that the stronger patent rules that it inserted in the 1995 WTO agreement don't go far enough. It wants stronger and longer patent protection and also increased use of "data exclusivity". This is a government-granted monopoly, often as long as 14 years, that prohibits generic competitors from entering a market based on another company's test results that show a drug to be safe and effective.

Note that stronger copyright and patent protection, along with data exclusivity, is the opposite of free trade. They involve increased government intervention in the market; they restrict competition and lead to higher prices for consumers.

In fact, the costs associated with copyright and patent protection dwarf the costs associated with the tariffs or quotas that usually concern free traders. While the latter rarely raise the price of a product by more than 20-30%, patent protection for prescription drugs can allow drugs to sell for hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars per prescription when they would sell for $5-10 as a generic in a free market.

Patent protection

Patent protection increases what patients pay for drugs in the United States by close to $270bn a year (1.8% of GDP). In addition to making drugs unaffordable to people who need them, the economic costs implied by this market distortion are enormous.

There are many other provisions in this pact that are likely to be similarly controversial. The rules it creates would override domestic laws on the environment, workplace safety, and investment. Of course, it's not really possible to talk about the details because there are no publicly available drafts.

In principle, the TPP is exactly the sort of issue that should feature prominently in the fall elections. Voters should have a chance to decide if they want to vote for candidates who support raising the price of drugs for people in the United States and the rest of the world, or making us all into unpaid copyright cops. But there is no text and no discussion in the campaigns – and that is exactly how the corporations who stand to gain want it.

There is one way to spoil their fun. Just Foreign Policy is offering a reward, now up to $21,100, to WikiLeaks if it publishes a draft copy of the pact. People could add to the reward fund, or if in a position to do so, make a copy of the draft agreement available to the world.

Our political leaders will say that they are worried about the TPP text getting in the hands of terrorists, but we know the truth: they are afraid of a public debate. So if the free market works, we will get to see the draft of the agreement.

Tuesday, 28 August 2012

Tracer bullets ricochet off their targets as the Japanese Ground Self-Defence Force Type 74 and Type 90 armoured tanks fire machine guns during a night annual training session at Higashifuji training field in Gotemba, west of Tokyo, August 21, 2012. Mt. Fuji is seen in the background.(Xinhua/Reuters)

The paper cited several Japanese officials as saying that the six countries that are receiving technical assistance from Japan's Defense Ministry are Indonesia, Vietnam, East Timor, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Tonga. The program is aimed at deepening cooperation with countries surrounding China, according to the report.

The assistance program falls under a Japanese initiative to "help nations in the Asia-Pacific region build up their ability to defend themselves." Japan added a new goal of "stabilizing the security environment in the Asia-Pacific region" to its National Defense Program Guidelines in late 2010.

According to Asahi Shimbun, this is another overseas military program the Self-Defense Forces has participated in besides the United Nations peacekeeping operations. Although the technical assistance is “strictly non-combat,” it will likely enhance the fighting capacity of the Self-Defense Forces.

US ascends in biggest stocks as Google, Apple oust Gazprom

Shares of Apple have hit new record highs after the company won its patent lawsuit against Samsung, but overall stocks traded mixed.

Image Credit: AP

Apple Inc., International Business Machines Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and four more US companies joined the top 20 since stocks peaked in 2007, bringing the total to 14, according to data compiled by Bloomberg

New York: American stocks are dominating global equities by the most in a decade, taking a majority of the spots in a ranking of the 20 biggest companies, after earnings rose faster than the rest of the world as the global economy rebounded.

Apple Inc., International Business Machines Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and four more US companies joined the top 20 since stocks peaked in 2007, bringing the total to 14, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. They replaced Moscow-based Gazprom OAO, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. in Beijing, Petroleo Brasileiro SA of Rio de Janeiro and six others from Europe and Asia. Of the nine added, only BHP Billiton Ltd. and Nestle SA are based outside the US.

More US corporations are represented than any time since 2003 after 10 quarters of economic expansion and profit growth lifted the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index 109 per cent since shares bottomed in March 2009. The shift reflects volatility in emerging markets and shows how innovation builds value in the US.

“The US is just the best place on the planet to have a great idea and turn it into a big business,” according to Michael Shaoul, chairman of New York-based Marketfield Asset Management, which oversees $2.7 billion (Dh9.9 billion).

“There’s another reason for this list to have shifted and that is the falling of prior darlings,” Shaoul said. “A lot of the ones which have fallen are energy and emerging-market related.”

Reasons for strength

American companies are gaining strength in part because of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. While the S&P 500 fell 0.5 per cent last week to 1,411.13, retreating from a four-year high, amid concern European leaders will fail to preserve the 17-nation currency union, the Euro Stoxx 50 Index slid 1.5 per cent. S&P 500 futures added 0.1 per cent to 1,410.6 at 8.52am in London on Monday.

Computer and software makers became the top industry in the S&P 500, overtaking financial companies, as Apple and IBM joined Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. among the biggest stocks. The last time a non-US technology producer made the global ranking was in 2001, when Finland-based Nokia Oyj was the world’s largest mobile phone maker. Nokia’s market value has fallen by 92 per cent since Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007.

The Cupertino, California-based maker of iPad computers last week became the most valuable US company ever as the stock rose to $668.87 on August 22, giving the company a value of $627 billion. Apple, which approached bankruptcy in 1997, has jumped more than 80-fold in the past decade.

IBM’s market value more than doubled over the decade as the company shifted its strategy toward more profitable software sales and away from hardware and consulting. The New York-based company, with a market capitalisation of $226 billion, closed the gap with Microsoft, valued at $256.2 billion, to become the No. 3 technology maker and the world’s seventh-biggest company.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, was worth four times as much as IBM in 1999. Mountain View, California-based Google, owner of the world’s most popular search engine, is valued at $222.6 billion.

No match to Apple, Google

“There are not a lot of other companies that can compete with the Googles and the Apples of the world,” Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James & Associates in St. Petersburg, Florida, said. “We have probably the most cutting-edge companies in the technology space that exist today. Who can match Apple? I can’t think of anybody.”

Computer and software makers represent 20 per cent of the S&P 500. The industry’s weighting outside the US is 4 per cent, as measured by the MSCI World ex-US Index.

Profit growth drove the US gains. The 14 biggest US companies earned $248.4 billion in the last 12 months, more than double the total made by the 67 companies in Brazil’s Bovespa Index. Their market value reached $3.57 trillion, about the size of Germany’s 2011 gross domestic product.

Earnings at the seven newly added American companies surged 40 per cent during the past four years, while income for the 13 non-US firms that made the 2007 list rose 6 per cent, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The ranking reflects the US economy, where growth climbed back toward pre-2008 levels faster than other countries. Gross domestic product is forecast to gain 2.2 per cent this year, according to the median estimate of 78 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That compares with an average of 2.6 per cent between 2002 and 2007, before the credit crisis, the data show.

Growth declines elsewhere

China is projected to expand by 8.1 per cent, compared with its mean rate of 11.2 per cent before the global recession. Brazil’s GDP may increase 1.9 per cent, down from an average of 3.8 per cent. Russia may grow by 3.8 per cent, next to 7.1 per cent in the five years before the credit crisis.

“People perceive not only better growth for the US, but also less risk,” Chris Leavy, the chief investment officer of fundamental equities at New York-based BlackRock Inc., which oversees $3.56 trillion as the world’s biggest money manager, said in an August 22 interview.

Investors are demanding more profit to reward companies with higher stock prices than before the credit crisis shattered confidence in equities. The average capitalisation of the largest 20 companies shrunk 17 per cent to $242.5 billion since 2007 even as profits surged almost fourfold to $18.8 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The biggest companies, dominated in 2007 by commodity explorers and enterprises controlled by China’s government, traded at an average price-earnings ratio of 57.6, the data show. Today, after the addition of two American technology developers and a California bank, the average valuation is 12.9, according to the data.

“It’s so commonplace in this country to vilify corporations, but the truth is the American corporate structure has worked very well,” David Kelly, chief market strategist at JPMorgan Funds in New York, said in an August 22 phone interview. His firm oversees about $348 billion. “There are other countries which are doing very well economically, but don’t do as good a job as inventing and reinventing themselves.”

The S&P 500 trailed the rest of the world in the previous bull market as accelerating growth in China boosted demand for commodities from Brazil to Russia. The index rose 99 per cent during the five-year rally that ended in October 2007, lagging behind a 187 per cent gain by the MSCI World ex-US Index and a 416 per cent surge in an MSCI gauge tracking 21 emerging markets. - Bloomberg

Samsung share price drops on Apple patent ruling

How South Koreans view Samsung ruling

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW The share price of Samsung Electronics dropped nearly 7.5% in trading Monday

Comes after a California jury awarded Apple $1.05 billion in a patent dispute with Samsung

The tumble erased about $12 billion from the South Korean electronics giant's market value

(CNN) -- The share price of Samsung Electronics dropped nearly 7.5% in trading Monday as investors had their first opportunity to react to the more than $1 billion decision against the Korean electronics giant by a California jury for infringing on Apple patents.

Samsung dropped 6.3% at the open of South Korea's Kospi index and finished the day down 7.45%, after dropping as much as 7.7%. The tumble erased about $12 billion from the company's market value Monday.

Samsung is planning to appeal Friday's decision of a U.S. federal jury which awarded Apple $1.05 billion for copying the look and feel of iPhones and iPad design. The jury rejected Samsung's counterclaims against Apple.

A senior Samsung executive told the Korea Times the decision was "absolutely the worst scenario for us" as he was heading into an emergency meeting at the company's Seoul headquarters on Sunday.

The decision could lead to the prohibition of sales in the U.S. of Samsung smarphones and computer tablets found to have violated Apple's patents. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for September 20.

"As far as the money damages are concerned, (Samsung) will make that up in the long run. The bigger issue at the moment them having to come up with new and unique designs appealing to the customer base," said Christopher Carani, chairman of the design rights committee of the American Bar Association.

"It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices," Samsung said in a written statement after Friday's decision. "It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies."

Apple, meanwhile, praised the court for "sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn't right."

"The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung's copying went far deeper than even we knew," the company said in a statement.

A nine-person jury spent just two and a half days puzzling out its final verdict, with weeks of notes and memories of testimony, 109 pages of jury instructions, and boxes of evidence including a collection of contested smartphones and tablets as their guide.

The jury award shows the growing importance of design for electronics makers. In 2001, Apple and Samsung were awarded 10 and eight U.S. design patents, respectively. This year, Apple could have as many as 333 design patents approved, while Samsung could have as many as 500, Carani said.

"Central to the U.S. case and at its very core was design rights, the way things look, and that's really where the large amount of this billion-dollar damages judgment comes from," Carani said.

The lawsuit is the largest yet in the ongoing worldwide patent brawl between the two companies, which itself is just one battle in Apple's war against Google's Android mobile operating system. On Friday, a South Korean court found that both parties had infringed on each other's patents, banning the sale of the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, two iPad models and Samsung's Galaxy S2.

Monday, 27 August 2012

The United States and Britain have claimed they have “special relations” for a long period. But recently, the United States has cracked down on large British banks successively.

Barclays Bank was accused of manipulating the interest rate. HSBC Bank was charged of laundering money for drug cartels. Presently, Standard Chartered Bank also turns into the target of U.S. Financial Regulatory Agency.

The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) said that since Standard Chartered Bank violated the U.S. Anti-Money Laundering Law and sanctions law against Iran, its business license would be revoked. At first, the Standard Chartered Bank denied the accusation and wanted to file a counterclaim. Experts in the City of London also blamed the DFS for its dictatorship. But a dramatic change subsequently occurred. The Standard Chartered Bank accepted the solution of being fined 340 million U.S. dollars and saved its license in the New York City.

Regarding the attack, the British government has not responded.

Why did U.S. Financial Regulatory Agency crack down upon large British banks one after another? Why did British government tolerate these attacks silently?

For the United States, there are three reasons.

Politically, in the general election year, the United States does not have the energy to launch a military operation against Iran and therefore it pays more attention to the implementation of sanctions against Iran.

Diplomatically, the United States wants to warn large European banks not to take any chance on the sanctions against Iran, which also frightens other European allies of the United States.

Financially, striking large British banks and belittling the role of Britain as the global financial center are favorable for the Wall Street.

On the British side, although the financial circle opposed that the United States attacked the British banks with sanctions law as an excuse, it did not mention the British banks’ pursuit of profits regardless of professional ethics. That is the reason why the Britain still resorted to the fastest resolution of the scandal in face of U.S. “extortion”.

Britain is not the only country having “special relations” with the United States. Recently, U.S. Financial Regulatory Agency pays close attention to the Deutsche Bank. Obviously, neither Standard Chartered Bank nor the Deutsche Bank is the last target of the United States.

Sunday, 26 August 2012

I READ with dismay the report “Consider other countries instead of Britain for further studies” (The Star, Aug 22 - see below) suggesting that Malaysian students turn their backs on British institutions of education because of the adverse impact of the British Security Policy on some students.

Such a notion ignores Malaysia’s association with Britain for over 200 years.

Unlike some colonial powers, Britain has stood the test of time in being a strong ally of Malaysia.

They stood by us in one of the most challenging times of the nation by fighting alongside in defending the country against a formidable communist insurgency in which many of them lost their lives, including Sir Henry Gurney the British High Commissioner who was gunned down in 1951.

Jalan Templer in Petaling Jaya stands as a legacy of the contributions of this general to this cause.

It’s easy enough for those who did not live through those anguishing times to brush this aside as the sentimental musings of the past.

Following independence, instead of abandoning the country like some colonial powers, Britain continued to prepare Malaysians to fill the void by training Malaysians in every sphere of education and training to put the nation on its feet, such as the Colombo Plan and thousands of educational aid in the form of subsidies and sponsorships.

Britain has some of the oldest and highly reputable globally recognised institutions of higher learning that have not lost any quality over time despite present-day economic constraints that have put pressure on educational institutions the world over.

The world is a rapidly changing place, burgeoning populations, factional wars and economic pressures are seeing people movement both legally and illegally in unprecedented numbers.

Most seeking a better life and refuge in developed democracies, are going to desperate lengths to get in, by forged or stolen documents and destroying their identifications so as not be be returned to their country of origin.

Western democracies are in a particularly vulnerable position because of the committed values they hold, of freedom and human rights, against people who grossly abuse those values.

Hardened by defiant illegals, who often challenge immigration policies in court through legal aid funded by taxpayers in host countries, border security authorities who have no way of telling the genuine from the bogus, tend to take a hard line in implementing rules to the letter.

As it is the nature of things, well meaning people sometimes become indignant victims of regulations.

The offence felt by honest people who are affected by the application of these regulations is understandable.

But to suggest that Britain should be bypassed as a centre of learning for self-centred reasons, without understanding the reason for these policies, is to mislead prospective students from securing a time- tested quality of education.

PAT ABRAHAMSMelbourne, Australia

Consider other countries instead of Britain for further studies

SOON, thousands of our youths will leave for Britain to further their studies either on scholarships or self-funded. A lot of money will be spent.

While the majority of the British educational establishments may give value for the money we are spending, there are other choices with the same or even better institutions where we can send our youngsters.

If we must have English as the medium of higher education, places like Australia, New Zealand, Canada or the United States should be considered instead of Britain.

I am advising Malaysian students to choose Britain last for further studies. I am not anti-British or trying to repeat the call of our fourth Prime Minister.

I am giving this advice simply because since the formation of the British Border Agency to deal with visa applications, things have really deteriorated to a very sad state for anyone trying to go for studies or are already studying in Britain.

The British Border Agency is treating Malaysians and any other non-European students as if we are asylum seekers. The inefficiency of the agency in dealing with visa applications makes one wonder if Britain is still a developed country.

Malaysians can now get our international passports within a couple of hours, but the British Border Agency can take a whole month just to let you know that your application is rejected because you missed out on some information.You then need to make a fresh application and pay new application fees.

While it may be a pain getting a student visa to Britain, one can get an Australian visa through online application. So if there is any doubt, just that alone should make one choose Australia instead of Britain.

For those already in Britain and hope to stay back to gain work experience, again you may be disappointed. Even if you manage to get a job, the Border Agency may make life quite difficult for you.

I know of a medical graduate who got a job for two intern years. The Border Agency gave her a work visa two weeks short of two years.

After working a few years there, the same doctor needed to renew her visa which was expiring. Due to technical error, the visa was denied, and this despite that her job contract was still valid. She had to get a lawyer to seek redress in the court just to stay back in Britain.

The worst and the most cruel case I know involves another student stranded in Britain during the long summer break. This poor girl lost her passport, which was replaced without much hassle.

However as her student visa was in the lost passport, she had to submit an application to have her visa in the new passport. She is there on a valid visa which should be in the system of the British Border Agency, yet her application which was submitted more than two months ago is still pending attention.

The Australian government from next year will allow foreign graduates to stay back up to four years after graduating to work. The immigration office is student-friendly.

So my advice to all those planning to go overseas to study is, please just exclude Britain.

In decoding the latest events in East Asia, it is important to know the stakes and the realities.

DAILY news reports span events with their highs, lows and in-betweens. As a whole, they suggest a world of randomly unconnected currents and irrationally contradictory events with insubstantial or unpredictable outcomes.

There may be times when the planet is like that, but most of the time it may look that way while being something else again. If not exactly a method in the madness, there is usually meaning in the mishmash.

That is why policymakers and their advisers have their work to do, acting proactively or retroactively. For sleuths, it is important to expose conspiracies without necessarily resorting to conspiracy theories.

In recent days alone, global society learned that Miss China won the Miss World contest in Ordos, Inner Mongolia. This was the second time that a Miss China won, and the fact that it happened in front of a home crowd made it that much more special.

Meanwhile at the intergovernmental level, China and the US established a Sino-US Partnership on Smoke-free Workplaces to restrict smoking and its consequences in public and private sector workplaces. Several such agreements involving governments and NGOs have emerged between China and the US in recent years.

In economics, much more continue to happen between East Asia and the rest of the world, spurred particularly by China’s spectacular growth profile. Despite ideological differences and occasional bumps over specific trade, investment or currency issues, the Chinese and US economies have never been more closely linked or interdependent, and increasingly so.

Periodic spats continue between countries across national borders, sometimes over where those borders should be. While they gain wider attention with diplomatic forays or military missions, in involving social, economic and political dimensions, these disputes become far more intractable.

The latest dispute to flare again over the week has been rival claims over the Pinnacle Islands in the East China Sea, which Japan calls the Senkaku, China calls the Diaoyu and Taiwan calls the Diaoyutai.

Earlier this month, a group of Japanese lawmakers and right-wing NGO members had planned a trip to the islands to reaffirm Japanese sovereignty as well as to commemorate Japanese victims of the Second World War. This followed spats between China and the Philippines, and Vietnam, earlier in the year over rival claims to other islands in the South China Sea.

Japan had already been administering the Pinnacles with its presence. The government of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda felt the nationalists’ trip would be unduly provocative and tried to stop it, earning the rebuke of nationalist groups and the right-wing mayor of Tokyo.

In the event, some 150 Japanese activists aboard 20 boats landed in the Pinnacles last Sunday. By then, Chinese activists from the Hong Kong-based Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands had landed on the Pinnacles’ biggest island four days before.

The activists were detained by Japanese authorities, who had earlier failed to dissuade them with water cannons and ramming their boat, Kai Fung No. 2. As Chinese protesters insisted on the activists’ release and Japanese nationalists demanded their imprisonment, Japan deported them.

Earlier in January, Hong Kong authorities had refused Kai Fung No. 2 permission to leave port “because the Marine Department had grounds to believe that the vessel would not be used for fishing and fishing-related purposes”. The boat’s owner is a known Chinese nationalist activist.

But during the week, Chinese activists on board the boat returned to Hong Kong to a public hero’s welcome. The governments in Beijing and Taipei protested when Japan detained the activists, but once they were freed, the general public in China and Taiwan took over the spotlight.

The governments involved wanted to show a measure of restraint without halting such activism altogether. It helps to keep popular support for official claims alive, without allowing it to overwhelm official policy or relations.

The Chinese activists had planted the flags of both China and Taiwan, symbolising a unity of the claims by the “two Chinas”. While previously both claims were handled separately by their respective governments, they lately appear to merge in relation to other countries.

The common misperception remains that Chinese communism is an evil that compounds differences with other countries. That classic ideological posture from the Cold War ill serves anyone in the present era.

As communist ideology wanes and the Chinese Communist Party’s grip nationwide recedes, the only framework that Beijing can access to mitigate the country’s multiple challenges is nationalism. And on the other side of the Taiwan Straits, the Kuomintang party in government is defined by Chinese nationalism.

If and when single party rule on the mainland ceases, a much more nationalist government is likely to emerge. A party in such a government would be more amenable to popular nationalist sentiment, while also less inclined to limit nationalist activism, creating new challenges for other countries.

China already has to confront multiple rival claims over territory with other countries. It behoves Chinese policymakers to minimise and streamline the issues for easier handling, such as by neutralising the dispute over sovereignty between Beijing and Taipei.

Until recent years, the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea had been persistent flashpoints in East Asia. Now that cross-straits relations have improved, disputes in the South China Sea simmer while East China Sea territory is being contested again.

There is an apparent trade-off in flashpoint potential between sub-regions. China’s immediate neighbours have at the same time contributed to friction in the adjoining waters.

Two weeks ago, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak visited the Dokdo islands occupied by his country but which are also claimed by Japan. While there, Lee declared that the Japanese Emperor had to apologise to Koreans for Japan’s wartime misconduct before he could visit South Korea.

The Japanese Foreign Minister replied by calling South Korea’s presence in Dokdo an “illegal occupation”. The spat continued for weeks, with Seoul filing a formal protest against Tokyo two days ago.

However dramatic, these disputes are unlikely to cause a major conflagration. While China always looms larger because of size and potential, there are also opportunities amid the risks.

China’s historic transition is led by econo­mics, but not without social and political ramifications. One feature here is the transformation of the foreign policymaking elite.

Maoist China’s policymakers in the Foreign Ministry had long been typical party ideologues. But as its economy blossomed, a new array of inputs have come to constitute an elite sourced from both the private and government sectors.

Meanwhile, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has still been less amenable to change. It is still constitutionally required to serve in the defence of the nation without interfering politically, but there is a growing temptation to signal its political positions.

So far the party and the state have mitigated this by allocating bigger budgets for defence, while also keeping PLA pressure on policymaking at bay. A party or government more vulnerable to populist pressure or lobbying may have to give the military more leeway.

The challenge for other countries is to work constructively with the more progressive elements in China’s political establishment towards more agreeable foreign relations. But from some of the latest events in the region, that challenge may be very difficult to meet.

Saturday, 25 August 2012

Apple won more than $1 billion in a massive victory Friday over South Korean giant Samsung, in one of the biggest patent cases in decades—a verdict that could have huge market repercussions.

A jury in San Jose, California rejected Samsung's counterclaims against Apple, according to media reports—a big win for the Silicon Valley giant, which had claimed its iconic iPhone and iPad had been illegally copied.

The jury, which had examined infringement claims and counter-claims by Apple and Samsung, ruled the South Korean electronics giant had infringed on a number of patents, the tech websites Cnet and The Verge said in live courtroom blogs.

The verdict affects patents on a range of Samsung products including some of its popular Galaxy smartphones and its Galaxy 10 tablet—devices alleged to have been copied from the iPhone and iPad.

"All of its patents were held valid, and all but one were held to be infringed by most or all accused Samsung products. Even better for the company, five of the seven patents were held to be willfully infringed by Samsung."

Love said this means that Judge Lucy Koh "now has the discretion to triple Apple's damages award, which is already a monstrous and unprecedented $1.051 billion."

Technology analyst Jeff Kagan said of the verdict: "This is a great day for Apple. And it will turn into a very expensive day for Samsung."

Kagan said it was not immediately clear if Samsung would be able to continue to use the technology and pay Apple for the right to do so, or if they must pull their devices and redesign them.

In any case, the verdict in the case—one of several pending in global courts—is likely to have massive repercussions in the hottest part of the technology sector, smartphones and tablets.

Even a delay in sales could endanger Samsung's position in the US market, where it is currently the top seller of smartphones.

A survey by research firm IDC showed Samsung shipped 50.2 million smartphones globally in the April-June period, while Apple sold 26 million iPhones. IDC said Samsung held 32.6 percent of the market to 16.9 percent for Apple.

The jury reached its verdict after deliberating for less than three days, examining claims of infringement by both sides. The trial heard evidence during 10 days over a three-week period.

Samsung had steadfastly denied the charges by Apple, claiming it developed its devices independently, and countersued in the case, seeking more than $400 million for infringement on its wireless patents.

The verdict came the same day a South Korean court ruled Apple and Samsung infringed on each other's patents on mobile devices, awarding damages to both technology giants and imposing a partial ban on product sales in South Korea.

The court banned sales in South Korea of Apple's iPhone 4 and iPad 2, as well as Samsung's Galaxy S and Galaxy SII among other products. (c) 2012 AFP

After a year of scorched-earth litigation, a jury decided Friday that Samsung ripped off the innovative technology used by Apple to create its revolutionary iPhone and iPad.

The jury ordered Samsung to pay Apple $1.05 billion. An appeal is expected.

Apple Inc. filed its patent infringement lawsuit in April 2011 and engaged legions of the country's highest-paid patent lawyers to demand $2.5 billion from its top smartphone competitor. Samsung Electronics Co. fired back with its own lawsuit seeking $399 million.

The verdict, however, belonged to Apple, as the jury rejected all Samsung's claims against Apple. Jurors also decided against some of Apple's claims involving the two dozen Samsung devices at issue, declining to award the full $2.5 billion Apple demanded.

However, the jury found that several Samsung products illegally used such Apple creations as the "bounce-back" feature when a user scrolls to an end image, and the ability to zoom text with a tap of a finger.

As part of its lawsuit, Apple also demanded that Samsung pull its most popular cellphones and computer tablets from the U.S. market. A judge was expected to make that ruling at a later time.

After the verdicts were read, the judge sent the jury back to deliberate further on two inconsistencies involving about $2.5 million in damages awarded to Apple based on products jurors found didn't infringe Apple's patents. Those deliberations were continuing.

'Crisis of design'

During closing arguments at the trial, Apple attorney Harold McElhinny claimed Samsung was having a "crisis of design" after the 2007 launch of the iPhone, and executives with the South Korean company were determined to illegally cash in on the success of the revolutionary device.

Samsung's lawyers countered that it was simply and legally giving consumers what they want: Smart phones with big screens. They said Samsung didn't violate any of Apple's patents and further alleged innovations claimed by Apple were actually created by other companies.

'Today's verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer. It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices.'—Samsung statement

Samsung responded to the verdict in a statement issued from its Seoul headquarters, saying it was "unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly."

"Today's verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer. It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices," Samsung said.

Samsung has emerged as one of Apple's biggest rivals and has overtaken Apple as the leading smartphone maker. Samsung's Galaxy line of phones run on Android, a mobile operating system that Google Inc. has given out for free to Samsung and other phone makers.

Samsung conceded that Apple makes great products but said it doesn't have a monopoly on the design of rectangle phones with rounded corners that it claimed it created.

'Thermonuclear war' on Android

Google entered the smartphone market while its then-CEO Eric Schmidt was on Apple's board, infuriating Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who considered Android to be a blatant rip off of the iPhone's innovations.

After shoving Schmidt off Apple's board, Jobs vowed that Apple would resort to "thermonuclear war" to destroy Android and its allies.

The trial came after each side filed a blizzard of legal motions and refused advisories by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh to settle the dispute out of court. Deliberations by the jury of seven men and two women began Wednesday.

Apple and Samsung combined account for more than half of global smartphone sales. Samsung has sold 22.7 million smartphones and tablets that Apple claimed uses its technology. McElhinny said those devices accounted for $8.16 billion in sales since June 2010.

Identical look and feel

From the beginning, legal experts and Wall Street analysts viewed Samsung as the underdog in the case. Apple's headquarters is a mere 16 kilometres from the San Jose courthouse, and jurors were picked from the heart of Silicon Valley where Jobs is a revered technological pioneer.

While the legal and technological issues were complex, patent expert Alexander I. Poltorak previously said the case would likely boil down to whether jurors believed Samsung's products look and feel almost identical to Apple's iPhone and iPad.

To overcome that challenge at trial, Samsung's lawyers argued that many of Apple's claims of innovation were either obvious concepts or ideas stolen from Sony Corp. and others. Experts called that line of argument a high-risk strategy because of Apple's reputation as an innovator.

Apple's lawyers argued there is almost no difference between Samsung products and those of Apple, and presented internal Samsung documents they said showed it copied Apple designs. Samsung lawyers insisted that several other companies and inventors had previously developed much of the Apple technology at issue.

Global patent war

The U.S. trial is just the latest skirmish between the two tech giants over product designs. Apple and Samsung have filed similar lawsuits in eight other countries, including South Korea, Germany, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Britain, France and Australia.

Samsung won a home court ruling earlier Friday in the global patent battle against Apple. Judges in Seoul said Samsung didn't copy the look and feel of the iPhone and ruled that Apple infringed on Samsung's wireless technology.

However, the judges also said Samsung violated Apple's technology behind the feature that causes a screen to bounce back when a user scrolls to an end image. Both sides were ordered to pay limited damages.

The Seoul ruling was a rare victory for Samsung in its arguments that Apple has infringed on its wireless technology patents. Samsung's claims have previously been shot down by courts in Europe, where judges have ruled that Samsung patents were part of industry standards that must be licensed under fair terms to competitors.

The U.S. case is one of some 50 lawsuits among myriad telecommunications companies jockeying for position in the burgeoning $219 billion market for computer tablets and smartphones. - The Associated Press

Apple patent win may reshape sector

WASHINGTON — Apple's decisive victory in a landmark US patent case against Samsung could reshape the hot sector for mobile devices and slow the momentum of Google and its Android system, analysts say.

Apple won more than $1 billion in the case Friday, after a California jury found the South Korean electronics giant infringed on dozens of patents held by the iPhone and iPad maker.

Although Google was not a party in the case, it makes the Android operating system which was central to the case -- a system which Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs called a "stolen" product.

Apple has been battling as Samsung and other manufacturers of the free Android system eat away at its market share in the sizzling market for smartphones and tablet computers.

"I think this will force a reset on Android products as they are reengineered to get around Apple's patents," said Rob Enderle, a technology analyst and consultant with the Enderle Group.

But Enderle said other companies may benefit from the decision, including Microsoft, which has been lagging in the mobile sector, and Blackberry maker Research in Motion, which has been hit hardest by the rise of Android devices.

The court ruling, said Enderle, "should provide a stronger opportunity for both of Microsoft's new platforms -- Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 -- because they come with indemnification against Apple, suddenly making them far safer and possibly a faster way to get product to market."

The decision also "will make RIM far more attractive as an acquisition because RIM's patents are thought to be strong enough to hold off Apple," Enderle said.

"Both Samsung and Google may make a play for the company, and both Microsoft and Apple may move to block them."

In recent months, Android devices have grabbed more than 50 percent of the US smartphone market to around 30 percent for Apple, while RIM's shares have slid to around 12 percent.

The patents at play include software such as the "bounceback" feature for smartphone users when scrolling and pinch-zooming, which are featured on Android devices.

"The jury essentially concluded that Samsung is a reckless copycat and, since some of the infringement is Google's responsibility, basically agreed with Steve Jobs's claim that Android is a stolen product," he wrote on his blog.

Still, a lot hinges on what happens next in court, with the case likely to be tied up in appeal for some time.

Judge Lucy Koh set a September 20 hearing where she will consider whether to overturn or modify the jury verdict, whether to impose "punitive" damages which would triple the award and whether to issue injunctions against Samsung.

A critical factor will be whether Apple will be able to obtain a permanent injunction, or halt in sales on infringing Samsung devices, and whether this would be enforced during the appeal.

Dennis Crouch, a University of Missouri patent law specialist, said the judge will have broad discretion.

"Some courts have issued broad injunctions that essentially say 'stop infringing the patent,' others issue much more narrow orders directed only toward the particular products that are adjudged to infringe," Crouch said on his blog.

"The reality is that Samsung has been planning for the likelihood of injunctive relief and is surely ready to stop selling any of the infringing products and replace those products with ones that at least have not yet been adjudged as infringing."

This could lead to more legal battles, since Apple has another lawsuit pending on Samsung's newer handheld devices.

Samsung has pledged to keep fighting the case, and said that if it stands "it will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices."

Samsung called it "unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies."

Analysts say that aside from Samsung, Google could be the big loser, especially if Apple pursues its litigation against other manufacturers.

"Google cannot stop Apple. It is now on the run and will have to scramble to make software changes to Android," Mueller said.

"In a few years, the San Jose jury verdict may -- I repeat, MAY -- be remembered as the tipping point that sent Android on a downward spiral."

By Rob Lever (AFP)

Samsung wins Korean battle in Apple patent war

South Korea's Samsung won a home court ruling in its global smartphone battle against Apple on Friday when Seoul judges said the company didn't copy the look and feel of the U.S. company's iPhone, and that Apple infringed on Samsung's wireless technology.

However, in a split decision on patents, the panel also said Samsung violated Apple technology behind the bounce-back feature when scrolling on touch screens, and ordered both sides to pay limited damages.

The Seoul Central District Court ruling called for a partial ban on sales of products including iPads and smartphones from both companies, though the verdict did not affect the latest-generation phones — Apple's iPhone 4S or Samsung's Galaxy S3.

The ruling affects only the South Korean market, and is part of a larger, epic struggle over patents and innovation unfolding in nine countries. The biggest stakes are in the U.S., where Apple is suing Samsung for $2.5 billion over allegations it has created illegal knockoffs of iPhones and iPads.

Wide-ranging dispute

The Seoul ruling was a rare victory for Samsung in its arguments that Apple has infringed on its wireless technology patents, which previously have been shot down by courts in Europe where judges have ruled that they are part of industry standards that must be licensed under fair terms to competitors.

"This is basically Samsung's victory on its home territory," said patent attorney Jeong Woo-sung. "Out of nine countries, Samsung got the ruling that it wanted for the first time in South Korea."

The ruling ordered Apple to remove the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 1 and iPad 2 from store shelves in South Korea, ruling that the products infringed on two of Samsung's five disputed patents, including those for telecommunications technology.

The court also denied Apple's claim that Samsung had illegally copied its design, ruling that similar rectangular screens with rounded corners had existed in products before the iPhone and iPad.

"Based on the similarity in these features, it is not possible to assert that the two designs are similar," the court said in a ruling issued in Korean that was translated into English by The Associated Press. It also said individual icons do not appear similar to the icons Apple used in the iPhone.

But the court ruled that Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung had infringed on one of Apple's patents on the feature that causes a screen to bounce back when a user scrolls to an end image. The court banned sales of Samsung products using the technology, including the Galaxy S2, in South Korea.

Products removed

Court spokesman Kim Mun-sung said the court's ruling was to take effect immediately, although companies often request that sanctions be suspended while they evaluate their legal options.

Nam Ki-yung, a spokesman for Samsung, said the company welcomed the ruling. "Today's ruling also affirmed our position that one single company cannot monopolize generic design features," he said.

Apple did not respond to multiple calls seeking comment.

The court also ordered each company to pay monetary compensation to its competitor. Samsung must pay Apple 25 million won ($22,000) while Apple must pay its rival 40 million won.

South Korea is not a big market for Apple, and the ruling is not likely to have a big impact on jury deliberations in the U.S.

However, some industry watchers expressed concern over the South Korean ruling to protect industry standard patents. They say the decision could invite a trade war by giving Samsung and fellow South Korean company LG — both industry standard patent holders — more room to block rivals' entrance into South Korea if they don't agree to licensing terms.

"It would mean that foreign companies would either have to bow to Samsung's and LG's demands ... or stop selling in Korea," said Florian Mueller, a patent expert in Munich, Germany who has been closely following the case.

Courts in Europe, including Netherlands, France, Italy and Germany have rejected similar claims by Samsung that Apple violated its wireless patents, with judges arguing that the patents have become part of industry standards. Standard-essential patents are a crucial technology for new players to make products compatible with the rest of the market and must be licensed under fair and reasonable terms.

Case continues elsewhere

Europe's anti-trust regulator launched an investigation earlier this year into whether Samsung was failing to license those patents under fair and reasonable terms.

In Friday's ruling, the South Korean court said Samsung did not abuse its market power as an industry standard patent holder.

Apple filed suit against Samsung in San Diego, California, in April 2011, alleging that some of the South Korean company's smartphones and computer tablets are illegal knockoffs of Apple's iPhone and iPad. Samsung denies the allegations and argues that all companies in the cutthroat phone industry mimic each other's successes without crossing the legal line.

Cupertino, California-based Apple is suing Samsung for $2.5 billion and demanding that the court pull its most popular smartphones and computer tablets from the U.S. market, making the case one of the biggest technology disputes in history.

Jury deliberations in San Diego began Wednesday after three weeks of testimony. The case went to the jury after last-minute talks between the companies' chief executives failed to resolve the dispute.

Shortly after Apple filed its suit in the U.S., Samsung filed a complaint in South Korea against Apple for allegedly breaching its telecommunications patents.

The battle is all the more complex as Apple and Samsung are not only competitors in the fast-growing global market for smartphones and tablet computers, but also have a close business relationship.

Samsung, the world's biggest manufacturer of memory chips and liquid crystal displays, supplies some of the key components that go into Apple products, including mobile chips that work as a brain of the iPhone and the iPad.

The South Korean firm overtook Apple in less than three years in smartphone markets. In the second quarter of this year, Samsung sold 50.2 million units of smartphones, nearly twice as much as Apple's 26 million units, according to IDC. - The Associated Press